The lights are flashing in your review mirror and you pull to the side of the road. An officer walks up alongside your car as you roll down the window. "You know why I pulled you over?" he asks. You shrug. "You're endangering every other rider on the road," he says.

"You mean driver?" you ask.

"No. You were driving. That's the problem here. Everyone else is riding. You're putting them at risk."

So as Google (see image) and others keep developing self-driving cars with sensors all over the place, eliminating blind spots and distractions of texting and the urge to speed or beat the light, how long is it before driving is considered as irresponsible as texting and driving is today? When was the last time you could see a deer on the road 100 yards away in the dark like a car with infrared sensors can?

But I like driving, I hear you saying. Me too, sometimes. I mean, I'd LOVE to have my daily commute as a time for reading or writing. I'd sure get a lot more done! But sometimes, driving is just fun. But if a computer is vastly safer than a human driver, will we be allowed to drive on public roads?

Today, cars kill three times more people in the U.S. each year than guns do, and they're not supposedly protected by the Constitution the way guns are meant to be. Yet look how many people want to do away with guns, despite the fact that they can be used for recreation and hunting and defense against an all-intrusive government ... you know, if the government ever became intrusive. So if driving became optional, and it was knowingly dangerous like this, wouldn't it naturally be relegated to private roadways?

Suddenly you're getting a Groupon for half price on getting to drive a real car for one hour.

Self-driving cars are so established by 2045 in Darwood & Smitty, it's only a matter of union power that riders are still used to deliver packages. Which amounts to a good thing, because otherwise we wouldn't have had that whole adventure.

But in the meantime, what do you think -- how long until driving is illegal on public roads; how much extra time would you have each day if your car drove you around; and what would you do with that time?

In my job, I spend a bit of time browsing through online articles and, along the way, see a lot of ads for other articles -- advertorials really (ads that are written to look like editorial content). One of those I've seen recently is about this guy who broke the Biblical code for how to invest and made a bunch of money. And of course he's selling something to show you how.

The obvious problem here is that the Bible can support just about any perspective you want it to. In one of the more obvious examples, the Old Testament tells us "an eye for an eye" while the New Testament tells us to "turn the other cheek." So what it boils down to is that the message you get from the Bible depends on the consciousness you bring to it. Kind of like life.

That doesn't mean the Bible isn't valuable. It doesn't mean it's not a legitimate holy book and that it wasn't honestly given in some means from God to humankind. It means that "Love thy neighbor" can be taken in vastly different ways by different people. To one person, this means telling a neighbor what they should do to fix their problems; to another, it means simply giving a shoulder to cry on while they tell you about their problems; to another, it might mean serving them in some way while, at the same time, demonstrating (without saying a word) how one can overcome problems.

In regards to investing, one could look at the verse about not storing up treasures on earth as a message not to invest at all. Meanwhile, one investor might look to traditional investments while paying capital gains taxes (render unto Caesar what is Caesar's) while another invests offshore so that nothing is gained which belongs to "Caesar." The first might say this is thwarting Jesus' message about taxes while the second says he gave us a loophole.

One could also say that tithing is necessary before one's investments will be maximized, and another might agree but debate whether tithing should be defined today as it was once upon a time. When described in the Bible, tithing is really a 10% tax that supported the priesthood and charity via however the priesthood cared for the poor. Our taxes today support the government and charity in a similar way. So since we're already giving to charity in that sense by paying taxes, are part of our tithes already given? Or are they partly (or wholly) given by donating to charities beyond the church? And if we give time to our church or other spiritual center (which was once only done by the priesthood), have we tithed in still another way?

At the end of the day, it might be useful to read someone's views on Biblical secrets to investing if only to spend time reflecting on one's own beliefs in regards to faith, money, and doing the right thing morally. But I think it's pretty clear that the Bible (or any other faith's holy book) is not a guide to investing, but more of a guide that reflects your own level of consciousness or your own beliefs. And I suspect (hope) for most of us that this matures over time.

The topic of gun control is a tricky one because of the strong, strong emotions involved and because, yes, guns can kill people. Well, as they say, PEOPLE can kill people, and they can use guns if they're available.

But most of the arguments I see fail to take into account the big picture, and while I won't pretend to be bringing up every issue possible, let me share a few thoughts that I believe should be part of the discussion:

2) France is ranked #12 in the rate of gun ownership and Germany is ranked #15, while the UK is ranked #88. Yet the number of homicides by any method is LOWER in France and Germany than in the UK. So the number of guns is not dictating the homicide rate. The U.S. total homicide rate is about 5.1 per 100,000 people; the UK is 1.15; Germany is 0.8; and France is 0.7.

So SOMETHING else is going on in the U.S. to drive murderous violence.

3) The number of gun homicides in these countries per 100,000 is:

U.S. -- 3.6, or 71% of our total homicides.

U.K. -- .06, or 5% of their total homicides.

France -- .22, or 31% of their total homicides.

Germany -- .2, or 25% of their total homicides.

As expected, gun ownership in these countries DOES increase the use of guns in homicides, because it's a pretty reliable way to do the job. But again, the presence of guns doesn't seem to dictate how many people are dying; just HOW they are dying.

In fact, despite our #1 rate for gun ownership, the U.S. isn't even in the top 100 countries for homicide rates. So you really can't correlate the two. So the next question comes up: is it poverty?

I don't know what level poverty plays, because while I imagine it plays a role, I don't think it's the full story. Germany, the UK, and the US all have similar poverty rates (around 15%) while France is listed at around 6% (just reporting the stats). So this wouldn't explain why the US has 4-5 times the homicide rate.

However, I always remember the theories that Daniel Quinn shares in books like The Story of B and Ishmael. He talked about how increased population in a given area leads to crime, and if you look at the poorest large cities in America, 5 of them (as of this writing) are in the top 10 murder cities in the U.S. So ... population density and poverty coming together. (And Detroit, which tops the poverty rate of large cities in the U.S., is the king of overall violent crime.)

So does that hold up to countries with the highest murder rates? Honduras has the highest (91.6 per 100,000) and has a 65% poverty level, but they're 127 on the population density list.

El Salvador has the next highest number of murders (69.2). They have a 36.5% poverty level. (Detroit's was 44% in 2009.) They are #46 on the density list.

The Ivory Coast is next in the murder line at 56.9. They have a 42% poverty level but are just #133 on the density list.

Meanwhile, Haiti, which has an 80% national poverty level and is #32 on the density list, has a murder rate only slightly above the U.S. at 6.9. So while I believe poverty and population must play some role, is it possible ... just possible ... that there are cultural differences related to violence, and that you can't simply blame the presence of guns?

Europe and Asia, for instance, have apparently developed cultures with low levels of murder (3.5 and 3.1 per 100,000 respectively), while most of Africa, South America, and Central America have extremely high murder rates. If America is a melting pot of all these cultures, how can you compare the murder rates with gun ownership when that statistical linkage fails within Europe's own borders???

If we took the murder rates of Central America (28.5) and South America (20.0) and Africa (17.0) and Europe (3.5) and Asia (3.1) and added these all up adjusted for the population of each culture in the United States (and assuming no adjustment for America's own culture), you would actually EXPECT a U.S. murder rate of perhaps 8.8 per 100,000.

Maybe this lower rate is BECAUSE we have a lot of guns. Maybe it's because we have a lot of space. (We're one of the least densely populated countries even though we have densely populated cities.) Maybe it's because of our wealth. (We are NOT the wealthiest per GDP, but we're in the top 20.) Maybe it's because we make great movies or because we have great music. Maybe it's because of our tax system or because of our legal system or in spite of our legal system. In short ... maybe it's because AMERICA AND ITS CULTURE ARE UNIQUE. And as a result, you can't just say, "Get rid of the guns and your problems will be solved."

Of course there are all sorts of "murder," and some of them are financial or freedom-oriented. You'll find different types of murder occurring in different places or cultures. For instance, a 2009 Global Economic Crime Survey showed Russia with the highest percentage of people reporting fraud in their organizations (71%). Canada was not far behind (56%, position #4). The UK, despite their low murder rate, was #7 at 43%. So ... different cultures, different crimes.

And let's not even get started on other forms of corporate destruction in the world -- NOT by all corporations, but certainly by some.

An interesting aside to all of this: at least looking at the 4 countries above, death by drug use (and perhaps, by association, drug use in general) correlates much better with gun homicide rates than gun ownership does. Two sources here and here show the U.S. and U.K. with much higher "death by drug use" rates than Germany and France. And the first is a surprisingly close correlation to gun homicide rates. Maybe rather than blaming gun ownership, we need to look at why we're using so many drugs and who's bringing them into the country. Oh, and let's be clear that I'm not referring to just illicit drugs here. More than half of drug deaths each year come from pain killers.

4) Finally, let's remember the Constitution. A damn inconvenience for those who want to get rid of guns in the U.S., mainly because it says that our right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed." Infringe = "encroach, limit, or undermine." Therefore, in my opinion, ANY law that limits guns in ANY way is unconstitutional by definition and should not be upheld.

This doesn't mean that we can't amend the Constitution to allow for these laws, but as it stands today, the Constitution very clearly bars these laws. "But the Founding Fathers didn't know what kind of guns would be developed." That's ok -- that's why they allowed us to amend the Constitution should the need arise. As long as enough people agreed.

But if you can simply make laws to bypass the Constitution "on this one" because it's emotionally charged, then you're on the proverbial slippery slope of losing all your rights. I would much rather people consciously choose, as a nation, that they want to amend their founding document to allow or disallow something. This is the national contract on which we're all supposed to be able to plan our lives. And like any contract, if it's broken without repercussion, then we are in no place to plan our lives. We're at the mercy of those who decide things on their own whim. And for myself, it's not how I prefer to live.

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